


Rent Asunder

by Moons_of_Avalon



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Baby Legolas Greenleaf, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 06:24:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18773050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moons_of_Avalon/pseuds/Moons_of_Avalon
Summary: Thranduil and his wife, Laeriell, shared a rare and precious love, a bonding of true-matched souls. When she is taken from him, that blessing becomes a curse.





	Rent Asunder

**Author's Note:**

> "Nana" is diminutive of the Sindarin "naneth", meaning mother (so basically, mom or mama)

Few in Middle Earth would ever know the power of an elven soulbond. The power of a love so pure and true, so transformative that it could rewrite the narrative of your life, changing you ever for the better. Thranduil had been one of the fortunate, blessed with a lover, a queen, beyond compare in beauty and wit and charm. Laeriel, daughter of summer, and oh how fitting that name had been for her golden hair and fierce amber eyes. The greatest warrior under his command and now the mother of his young son and heir. There were not words for how he loved her, for how his heart cried out to hold her every moment they were apart, and how his soul sang when they were together.

Nor were their words for the pain of losing such a mate, for fewer still would know that calamity. Heartbreak, the unknowing would call it, one of the few things that could kill an immortal elf. Heartbreak, a pitiful description from those who knew not of what they spoke. Heartbreaking, soul-shattering, world-ending, none of them came close.

Thranduil had been one of the fortunate, until the moment it is all ripped away.

He is surrounded by advisors when it happens, discussing their incursions into enemy lands, driving back the darkness that threatened the Greenwood. Someone is speaking to him and he is nodding, his mind half in the present and half elsewhere, until the breath is torn from his chest, a crushing weight laid upon him, and his legs buckle from the strain as he gasps and falls to the ground.

There are voices around him, stretched thin with fear. The great king of the Woodland realm should not fall, shouldn’t feel illness or weakness, but if they are asking him questions he cannot understand them. All he can hear is his queen, hundreds of miles away, screaming in agony, her skin sliced open by a horrific blade, black poison seeping into her veins.

“Tell us the way to your hidden realm,” an orc demands, “and we will allow you to be healed. We seek only the king and his spawn, the rest we will leave alive.”

“Legolas…” Thranduil gasps. “My son, where is my son!”

“In his nursery, my king…” Thranduil hears no more after that, forcing himself to his feet, and shedding his heavy, opulent outer robe as he runs, faster than the wind. Laeriel screams in his mind once more, and he can taste the poison on her tongue as she spits at her captors.

“You had better kill me quickly, I will never endanger my king, or my son.”

Thranduil throat is dry and tastes of blood as he gasps once again, perhaps it is a scream of his own, but he simply cannot hear for the despair inside him. They did not know who they had captured, she has signed the order for her death…

He almost falls again, but a cry rings through the air. Not his own, that of a baby…his baby, their son. Their sweet innocent son that orc filth would see murdered before his eyes.

It gives him strength he would otherwise have lacked, and he throws open the doors to the nursery, maids wheeling around in shock.

“My king!”

Thranduil pays no mind to their exclamations, he has only eyes and ears for his precious boy. Legolas is screaming in his nursemaid’s arms, his baby-plump cheeks red and streaked with tears, and Thranduil feels wetness falling onto his own skin has he reaches for his son.

“Give him to me,” he orders, and the maid quickly obliges.

“I’m sorry, my king, we don’t know what upset him, he just started crying and wouldn’t stop…”

Thranduil’s eyes squeeze shut, and he clutches his son close, his heart aching as the wails of his little son reverberate through his chest. He knows, he can feel it too, his poor little boy can feel the approaching death of his own mother.

“Nana…” Legolas cries, one of the few words he has. “Nana, nana!”

“I know,” Thranduil whispers. “I know, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, my son.”

There’s nothing he can do, she is too far away. The helplessness pains him worst of all.

“My king!” Thranduil doesn’t respond, but a hush falls over the room as a messenger pants in the doorway. “My king, the queen is captured…”

It’s too late, much too late, for in the same breath he can feel the blade sinking into his mate’s chest, as deep and sharp as if it were piercing his own flesh, and Legolas shrieks. A horrifying sound, the kind heard from soldiers dying on the battlefield, a sound that should never been heard in the high voice of a babe barely weaned from his mother’s breast, far too young to know such tragedy.

Thranduil doesn’t scream, he has no voice, no breath, only a chasm in his chest, empty and raw, as light fades from the one he loves, the one he bound his life to. And oh he wants to follow her, to give in to the darkness opening inside him. But the little life against his chest stops him, the screaming child he cannot hope to comfort. He must stay, for his son, he must endure for the one Laeriel died to protect.

“Leave us,” he commands.

“But, my king––”

“NOW!” he bellows the word, only to ache with regret when it sets Legolas screaming once more. But the advisors and attendants do rush out of the room. He doesn’t need to explain, they will know soon enough. Word will come that the queen…

He sinks to his knees as a sob wrenches from his chest, doubled over as the pain flares anew. His queen, his wife, his love, the mother of his child is…

“Forgive me,” he whispers, his breath rustling the feather-soft wisps of Legolas’s silver blond hair. “Forgive me, my son.”

He calls his troops back after that. Guard the borders of the realm, is his command, but no further. His advisors try to offer counsel to the contrary, but he waves them off, his attention never deviating from the baby asleep on his chest. No more lives will be lost in strange lands. This realm is all that matters, this people, this child…his little one. Laeriel’s sacrifice will not be in vain.


End file.
